Education for Sustainable Development in Learning Regions - An Interdisciplinary Challenge

How can out-of-school education initiatives contribute to sustainable regional
development? Though predestined to answer this question in an interdisciplinary way,
ESD and learning regions for different reasons fail to conceptualize out-of-school
education as part of a wider regional learning process.
ESD scholars primarily apply an inward-looking view on education in regions, i.e. goals of education. The few exceptions either remain prescriptive or case-specific on the regional effect of education initiatives and networks.
The learning regions literature capitalizes on spatially embedded knowledge processes
among heterogeneous actors, yet it disregards learning as social interaction transcending economic innovation. This angle renders education a marginal factor of regional development. As a potential framework towards outward-looking research on regional education, the paper briefly proposes a cultural political economy view on regional knowledge cultures.
In this context, education practitioners may play a reflective role that accounts for
heterogeneous learning needs in present as well as future regional development.